Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Florida on July 7
We’re keeping track of the latest news regarding the coronavirus in South Florida and around the state. Check back for updates throughout the day.
Inter Miami resumes season after 17-week hiatus. Here’s what it will look, sound like.
6 p.m.: It will not look the same. It will not sound the same.
But finally, after a four-month hiatus, aggressive COVID-19 testing, and endless debates about the safety of the Major League Soccer bubble in Orlando, the games will go on.
Inter Miami will resume its inaugural season Wednesday by kicking off the MLS is Back Tournament with an 8 p.m. ESPN game against Orlando City. It will mark the first major U.S. men’s sports competition since the coronavirus shut down the sports world in mid-March. The National Women’s Soccer League returned to action last week.
Florida still not reporting how many hospitalized with COVID. DeSantis won’t say why.
5:30 p.m.: Under pressure last week as COVID-19 hospitalizations soared in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said the state would start reporting daily hospitalization data for all 67 counties.
DeSantis on Tuesday, however, refused to address the fact that the state has yet to make good on its promise when asked by a Miami Herald reporter.
“Obviously not everything is presented in this report but just an unbelievable amount of data is available,” DeSantis said at an indoor press conference held at Florida’s 12th COVID-only nursing facility near Miami International Airport.
Read the full story here.
Elective surgeries at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital are on hold
5:10 p.m.: With rising COVID-19 numbers, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital announced that all elective, non-emergency surgeries will once again be put on hold beginning Wednesday.
The Hollywood hospital said the decision comes “after careful consideration of all recent COVID-19 data in South Florida.”
“We continue to manage COVID-19 patients and patients with other medical needs,” the hospital said in a social media post.
Outpatient diagnostic procedures will continue.
ICE asks federal judge to undo court order that mandates masks and soap, limits transfers
4:15 p.m.: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has asked a federal judge to undo an order she issued last month requiring the agency to give soap, cleaning supplies and masks to detainees at three South Florida detention centers.
The June 6 mandate -- which also strictly limits ICE transfers to other facilities and bars COVID-19-positive detainees from being housed with people who have not been tested -- was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Marcia G. Cooke in hopes of helping curb viral outbreaks of the coronavirus.
ICE’s request was filed late Monday, just hours before the 30-day deadline to object to Cooke’s June decision. The filing is part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit seeking the release of almost 1,200 detainees from the Krome Processing Center in Miami-Dade, the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach and the Glades Detention Center in Moore Haven as cases of COVID-19 among detainees and staff skyrocket.
Read the full story here.
Three more hand sanitizers on FDA’s ‘toxic’ list. One already on the list gets recalled
3:30 p.m.: The FDA’s warning list of hand sanitizers that have methanol or might have methanol grew by three as one sanitizer on the list got recalled Monday night.
ITECH 361 recalled 18,940 bottles of 1-liter bottles of All-Clean Hand Sanitizer. All-Clean is on the list out of association, “purported to be made at the same (Eskbiochem SA de CV) facility,” the FDA said, as two hand sanitizers in which the FDA found methanol. That’s how the list started with nine Eskbiochem-made sanitizers, two of which have since been recalled.
People with questions about the recall can email Corina Enriquez corina@itech361.com or call her at 888-405-4442, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Eastern time.
Read the full story here.
Slammed with COVID patients, Miami-Dade’s public hospital asks state for 100 nurses
2 p.m.: Grappling with COVID patients that have more than tripled in number since Memorial Day weekend, Miami-Dade County’s public hospital network, Jackson Health System, has asked the state for help with its most pressing issue: staffing nurses.
Jackson Health CEO Carlos Migoya spoke to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday night to request help, according to a hospital spokesperson, and was told he would receive 100 healthcare workers by Friday through a private staffing company. About 75 of the nurses will be “ICU-ready,” the spokesperson said.
DeSantis announced the aid on Tuesday at a press conference in Miami, saying the state will send 100 “contract personnel, mostly nurses, to be able to augment [Jackson Health’s] operations.” DeSantis said the nurses are needed to help isolate and treat people coming into the hospitals for non-COVID related reasons and then testing positive.
Read the full story here.
Miami-Dade mayor reverses course, will allow gyms to stay open as COVID-19 cases rise
1:40 p.m.: People in Miami-Dade County will still be able to hit the gym to regain their pre-pandemic bodies.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said gyms and fitness centers would remain open under an emergency order that will go into effect Wednesday as his response to a spike in the county’s COVID-19 cases, positive test rates, hospitalizations and intensive care unit bed usage.
He had originally said gyms would shut down.
The dying man was sent back to his cell. A look at how COVID-19 kills Florida prisoners
1:20 p.m.: On April 5, when Florida’s positive coronavirus cases were one-sixteenth the number they are today, 69-year-old Jeffrey Sand went to the infirmary at Blackwater River Correctional Facility, a privately managed state prison near Pensacola.
He complained of shortness of breath — and of a cough and diarrhea. Four days later, he was put back in his cell. He died there that same day, found sprawled on the floor of his cell, next to the door. The medical examiner says it was COVID-19, the first such death in the state prison system — but far from the last.
Until Monday, all the public knew was his name, and only because reporters confirmed it with the medical examiner in Santa Rosa County shortly after. No one knew that he was sent back to his cell by the infirmary while apparently on the verge of death. Sand was one of 2,443 inmates in the state who tested positive for COVID-19 and one of 25 who died.
Department of Corrections officials divulge precious little information about the circumstances under which inmates die, making it nearly impossible to determine whether inmates received adequate care.
Read the full story here.
Florida sees more than 7,000 new coronavirus cases as Miami-Dade total hits 51,000
12: 05 p.m.: Florida’s Department of Health on Tuesday confirmed 7,347 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state’s total to 213,794.
Of those, 2,066 cases were reported in Miami-Dade County, bringing the county’s total to 51,058 known cases as officials prepare to roll back reopenings such as restaurants and gyms because of the increasing coronavirus cases.
Florida also announced 63 new deaths, raising the statewide death toll to 3,841.
Read the full story here.
Will Broward follow Miami-Dade and close restaurants, gyms? Order could come Tuesday
11:35 a.m.: As coronavirus cases surge across the state, especially in South Florida, local governments are either going back into — or seriously considering — lockdown mode.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez responded to the county’s number of cases and deaths — the highest in the state — by signing a new emergency order Monday that goes into effect Wednesday. Restaurants and gyms that had been opened with restrictions are to mostly close again in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
Broward County has yet to follow suit, but it’s likely.
Read the full story here.
From Braman to Flanigan’s, here are the Miami-Dade and Broward companies that got PPP loans
11:05 a.m.: More than 100,000 Paycheck Protection Program loans made to South Florida car dealerships, private schools, white-shoe law firms and nonprofits rescued more than 800,000 local jobs, according to data released Monday by the Small Business Administration.
The vast majority of these loans were made to firms requesting $150,000 or less. In the SBA’s report, those firms were not named.
Firms receiving more than $150,000 were named in the report. They accounted for about 12,000 loans and were responsible for supporting more than half a million jobs.
Among the prominent local entities receiving loans of at least $150,000:
▪ Arts groups including The Broward Center for the Performing Arts, also known as the Performing Arts Center Authority; and Miami’s Arsht Center Trust
▪ Private schools including Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, Christopher Columbus High School, Florida Memorial University, Hebrew Day School of Broward County, Miami Country Day School, Scheck Hillel Community School, St. Thomas Aquinas High School and Westminster Christian;
▪ King Jesus International Ministry, the largest Hispanic church in the U.S.
Read the full story here.
Despite rising COVID-19 cases in Florida, state orders public schools to reopen in August
10:25 a.m.: Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran on Monday ordered public schools to reopen in August and offer “the full panoply of services” to students and families.
As COVID-19 outbreaks spike in Florida, Corcoran’s mandate said that extending school closures can impede students’ educational success and prevent parents and guardians from returning to work.
Under the emergency order, all public schools will be required to reopen in August for at least five days a week and to provide the full array of services required by law, including in-person instruction and services for students with special needs.
State health office closes in Miami-Dade after workers test positive for COVID-19
10:20 a.m.: A Florida Department of Health office in Doral has closed temporarily for deep cleaning after some staffers tested positive, a spokesperson for the county office confirmed Monday.
“One of our epidemiology offices was closed for thorough disinfection and cleaning because staff tested positive for COVID-19,” Olga Connor, the director of communications for the Department of Health in Miami-Dade said in an e-mail to the Herald.
Read the full story here.
What counties are rolling back reopening? Here are the rules in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe
9:25 a.m.: With an increase in coronavirus cases across the state, particularly in South Florida, local governments are retracting some of the area’s reopenings such as restaurants and gyms.
With the county having the highest rate of COVID-19 positive cases, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez signed a new emergency order Monday that will be effective starting Wednesday. A few categories had only been open for a few weeks and are now being closed again to slow the spread of the virus.
“We want to ensure that our hospitals continue to have the staffing necessary to save lives,” Gimenez wrote.
CATCH UP TO START THE DAY
9:20 a.m.: Here are the coronavirus headlines to catch you up on what’s happening around South Florida and the state as Tuesday begins.
Florida sees 6,336 additional coronavirus cases, pushing total past 206,000
DeSantis downplays COVID surge, suggests it was more prevalent than state admitted
Miami-Dade restaurants, gyms closing again under new order targeting COVID surge
‘I feel beaten down.’ Miami restaurant owners face second coronavirus shut down
Inter Miami forward leaves Orlando bubble, out for MLS is Back tournament. Here’s why
This story was originally published July 7, 2020 at 9:24 AM with the headline "Coronavirus live updates: Here’s what to know in South Florida on July 7."
